Investing Time

+10 Hours

"A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step."

I'm only ten hours in, and I already feel a big change from hour zero to now.  And I don't mean that I'm understanding complex statements or understanding much of anything really. But even though I've already been exposed to the spoken language many times before starting with the TV method, the sounds are more distinct and I'm more comfortable with it. That's not to say that the first 10 hours was a cakewalk.

This is how the first 10 hours went for me...  First I found a drama I believed would be entertaining enough for me to watch without knowing much (or anything) at all. Turns out that I was 110% correct! The drama was Atashinchi no Danshi and it had me bursting at the seams with laughter. The plot was quirky and fun, and I only got lost a few times throughout the eleven episodes.

Second I had to work my way around "hard" subtitles (subtitles merged to the video that have no option to be turned off), because all of the episodes I found in the series had them. They were so distracting! I decided to use the Spanish subtitles over the English because I don't know Spanish and thus would be easier to ignore. Or so I thought. Occasionally a sentence would appear containing words that I could understand and I couldn't help but glance down! Ultimately I covered the subtitles by sizing the window smaller which helped immensely but was still quite annoying. 

Third I found myself battling my own thoughts constantly. My mind would wander, and I would get easily distracted by other activities such as Facebook (shame on me!). The most prominent problem I had to overcome was one I was aware of before even having to deal with it. That problem being my searching of pre-translated Japanese to English (and vice versa) words in my head. My mind would search for a word like a card matching game. The card containing the Japanese word would be flipped and the timer to find the English "match" would be started. And therein lied the problem. During the time that I was mentally flipping those cards, searching for that match, all of the words coming after it were not just being ignored, but being blocked completely! So while searching for a word that I supposedly already "knew," I was missing out on many unknown words and phrases!

Fourth I learned to discipline my thoughts (though not perfectly). Every time I perked up to a familiar word I calmed myself down and refused to search for its so called match. To do so I just felt the meaning of the word and focused on listening to the rhythms of the following sounds. When it became less of a concern I found that I was enjoying myself more!

Lastly there was this slight concern with how to listen to my shows in order to accept the language. And that was the problem entirely! I caught myself listening too closely to the language and knew that I was going about it all wrong...

I listened best when I stopped listening.

It was at this point that I really began to better understand what the conversations were about and in doing so, focused on the story more instead. Why was paying attention to the story rather than the language and it's sounds more important? It allowed me to stop thinking distracting thoughts like what to write on my blog, my hours, and other boring things that don't matter! From there it was just me and a not-so-foreign sounding language.

I found all of this progress to be quite productive and eye-opening. I wasn't sure how this TV method would work out for me, and I'm still not completely sure. It's best to think that putting time into this method is not time spent or wasted but rather time invested. If you're like me, then the "traditional" method (studying) is no less risky. But what the traditional way is more boring. Nothing ventured nothing gained, right? Everyone who got where he is has had to begin where he was.

Here's to many more hours to come!

The TV Method

Hello everyone, I'm White (that's my last name) and this is my very first blog post ever! [insert applause]

I've always had a love for languages, but I'm still monolingual. What? No really it's true. I've always been easily discouraged about my progress (or lack thereof) when learning a language. And don't even get me started on staying motivated! Yuck.

I've been on-and-off "studying" Japanese for... too long to not know more than I do by now. It's always been a struggle, what with grammar drills/books and memorizing vocabulary. All of that get's to you pretty quick too. You want to stop because you get frustrated over not quite understanding something and it can get to be too much. So then you make the worst possible mistake: taking a break. You don't take breaks from English ever, so why break from your target language? It only sets you back!

So when I was surfing the web about language learning (instead of actually learning languages) I found a lovely blog called Spanish Only that had some interesting information regarding self immersion. Then through this blog I was led to another called Natural Language Acquisition (NLA).

And this is where the magic happens!

I stumbled upon a wonderful method called "The TV Method" and I became instantly hooked. I was fascinated with this "new" approach to language "learning" or acquisition (as Spanish One and NLA refer to it). But what's so "wonderful" about this so called method? Well it's simple, so simple in fact that it's borderline unbelievable!

You watch TV. No really, that's it. You watch shows/movies in your target language without subtitles. "Oh and then I sit and pull out words and learn/study them right?" Uh, no. "What?" Yeah, you just watch. And it comes naturally! Great right? Your brain picks out everything for you using the visuals as the contextual clue. If you're really interested in getting more details about this method, then I suggest you read up on it through one of the previously linked (and highly recommended) blogs.

Now, what's this post really about? Well dear readers, I'm going to test this method out on myself and post about my progress along the way (as well as the hours I rack up).

What I was doing up until now wasn't working out all that well for me, so taking a different approach is probably in my best interest. And the best part is I really can't lose! I'll still be listening to native speakers at conversational speed, which is always a good thing.

And if this goes well, then you bet your pretty face that I'll be using this to learn other languages!! (See how nice I am? I complimented your face.)